Return of the Woodcutter
Chapter 7 - Friend Or Foe? (part 2)

Aito liked that spot by the beach, even though the rock he sat on wasn't the comfiest of seats. After thirty minutes, his butt was already sore. Despite that fact, he decided to come here every morning.

Having finally calmed his mind, he stood up, took a last look at the sun, and headed home, pondering about his next move.

'I'll start by crafting a complete armor set. Shoulders and wrists are already done. It leaves me with chest, hands, legs, and head. Let's start with chest armor. Last time it cost me dearly to leave my ribs unprotected. Head armor should be next, though… I don't really know how I'll d—'

A jolting feeling alarmed him. His five senses heightened to their limits as he drew two stone axes.

Soon after, he turned towards a nearby bush, hurled one of his axes. A piercing cry followed suite.

"Kyaak!"

Three evol monkeys jumped out of the nearby bushes and trees to surround him.

He promptly equipped his shield and hid behind it to block incoming attacks. Like last time, the monkeys attacked him simultaneously. However, Aito came prepared.

Spear tip, dagger, and ax rebounded, throwing off balance the evol monkeys. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Aito opened his guard, stepped forward, and disposed of two enemies.

The last one turned around and ran away. Aito took aim, threw his weapon, and… missed.

Pissed, he ran after the monkey. They had never run away before, so he did not consider that a possibility.

Fortunately, it fell head-on into one of his pitfalls and instantly died from bamboo spikes piercing multiple parts of its body.

Seeing this, Aito clicked his tongue at the waste of crafting materials and meat. He sighed before leaving the body where it was. If not "harvested", the corpse would disappear by itself after a day, anyway.

He recovered the other corpses and headed back home, now confident that his shield would ease his burden for some time.

However, he found new improvements he could work on.

***

Aito spent the rest of this day outside his cave, crafting his armor set. By sunset, he had crafted a chest armor, and a helmet.

The chest armor composed of his lumberjack shirt on which he sewed multiple layers of monkey hide.

It truly looked horrible, but he couldn't allow himself to care about appearances. Aito executed a few tests on it with stone daggers and it surprisingly withstood the attacks.

Now, he would no longer need to care about a gaping wound in his ribs. However, he would still feel the impact. The armor only prevented piercing damages, not blunt ones.

As for his helmet, if the body armor was considered horrible, it was beyond that.

Aito had taken a coconut shell as a mold and used it to give the helmet its shape while sewing the skin. At first, it had looked like a mop head but with several trials and failures, the best he could craft was a bag-like helmet.

"How's that, Jack?" He said, showing his helmet to a bamboo stand. "Yeah, I know. But at least it offers protection against the sun and sharp tips."

Aito continued to debate with the bamboo stand about the uses of his new helmet, before angrily striding away, shouting, "You're just jealous!"

Angry, he left a piece of meat for monkey-Jack and went to sleep.

***

Jack laid on a tree branch, chewing on divine food. Today had been most instructive for him.

He had learned by watching the man-thing quickly beat the shit out of his comrades that it wasn't as weak as Jack thought.

Maybe it was a bit stronger than Jack was. Just a really, really, really tiny bit. So he decided not to risk a frontal attack and stick to his previous plan.

To hell with honor. Sneaky attacks were the way to victory! But first, he needed practice, since the man-thing proved to be a worthy foe, and Jack had found the perfect target.

It was as ugly, tall, and useless as the man-thing. But most of all, he hated it more than the man-thing itself! His insides boiled with rage just thinking about that thief!

He had heard the man-thing addressed the green bastard as "Jack." How dared it steal his sound! It was his and no one else's! If that supposed "Jack" thought Jack would let this go, it didn't know who it was dealing with.

Jack dropped from its perch, drew his stone dagger he had looted from the unfortunate "pitfall fellow", and prowled towards his prey.

Under the cover of darkness, Jack crawled on all four to the cave walls, repeatedly halting as to avoid drawing attention. His target within reach, Jack sharpened his senses. He simply couldn't pass by such an opportunity.

Focused and ready, he unleashed his fury.

***

Aito woke up before dawn with the usual morning notification. Still sleepy, he walked out of his lair and, as per usual, greeted the Jack bamboo stand.

"Good morn—" He said, his sleepiness rapidly shifting to surprise.

The stand laid in ruins at Aito's feet. "Jack" resembled swiss cheese. It was riddled with holes on all sides. There were so many of them that the bamboo was unsalvageable.

"Fuck."

It couldn't have been him since he was asleep and as far as he knew evol monkeys didn't appear at night. That only left…

"Jack."

He pulled out his iron ax from the inventory and ran towards Jack's broken cage. Once there, he looked at the tree next to it and sure enough, the monkey comfortably laid on it, sleeping.

Aito smile devilishly, well decided on avenging his fallen bamboo friend. He lifted his ax and took a wide swing.

BAM!

The tree shook under his inhuman strength as if it knew its life had come to an end.

Jack jumped to its feet and turned towards Aito, its sleepy face still looking for an explanation of the current situation.

BAM!

"Why did you kill him? He has never wronged you before!"

BAM!

"Why?!"

BOOM!

The tree fell prey to his ax, hitting the ground with an incredulous-looking Jack still on its perch. The shock reached its brain, and it drew its dagger.

"What? Wanna have a taste of my iron?" Aito said, equipping his shield. "Come, come!"

Jack bared his teeth but didn't attack. Aito wasn't willing to bring things further than this either. Deep inside, he knew it wasn't right to kill a living being over an inanimate object. But he had gotten accustomed to the bamboo stands, particularly the one at his cave entrance.

The situation degraded to a standstill, with both of them staring daggers at each other amidst the rustling wind of the forest until the first rays of dawn showed up.

"Tshh, no meat for you this morning." Aito clicked his tongue and turned to see the sun already shining on the horizon. "Shit, I missed the sunrise because of you."

He stared at Jack for a while longer and, certain the creature wouldn't backstab him, left, realizing he had just bickered with a monkey over a wrecked bamboo stand.

***

Jack eyed the leaving man-thing viciously. He had thought it would never dare attack him first. It turned out he had been wrong.

He wasn't ready to face him yet. Last night, it took him too long to bring the impersonator down on its knees. It left him unsatisfied.

He wanted to be faster and sneakier. He was convinced that a way to kill it in one strike existed. But what was it? If he discovered it, even the man-thing wouldn't survive such a technique.

Jack steeled his resolve and headed for his next target to sharpen his skill set.

***

3rd day of the week.

Aito finally finished his armor set. He expectantly waited for a reward notification but was greatly disappointed and was now certain it only appeared on Filona's whim.

As usual, evol monkeys still attacked him once per day. However, with his new equipment, he could now repel them with ease.

4th day of the week.

Aito trained his marksmanship by using a round wooden board from the iron tree he had cut down previously.

Ax, dagger, and spear throw. Standing ten meters from the target, he used every weapon he had at his disposal. Surprisingly, with his new strength, it dealt devastating damage—when Aito didn't miss, that is.

Even with no previous experience in javelin throw, he could throw a spear at a hundred-fifty meter away, the current world record being 98 meters. If he could improve his technique, Aito was certain to reach even further than that.

Empowered by the idea of dealing with his enemies from a safe distance, he decided to train on a daily basis.

5th day of the week.

Next on his training list came the shield. With no practice partner, he used a moving log tied to a tree branch like a pendulum with a rope.

He would then push the log to give it momentum and block its course by using his poorly crafted creation to avoid damaging his Viking shield.

That method was rough and unrefined, but no one could teach him about shield blocking on that forsaken island.

After one session, Aito could feel his sore muscles pleading for him to stop. Convinced by that result, he incorporated it into his daily routine, although it didn't really prove anything.

6th day of the week.

Aito found more wrecked bamboo stands than usual. Even if he had been repairing them each day, the "casualties" kept stacking up.

Apparently, Jack had increased its efficiency in dealing with those. At first, it had angered him to the point that he hid the bamboo stands. Amidst bushes, in a tree, at the mountaintop, even underwater.

Nothing worked. The monkey would eventually shred the hidden imaginary friends into fertilizers. After six days, Aito finally gave up on the idea of teaching Jack a lesson and simply stopped wasting his precious bamboo resources on repairing stands.

And, still unaware of it, his delusion about an imaginary friend slowly faded away.

Last day of the week.

"Kyaak!"

On the beach, a wounded evol monkey was running away from a furious Aito.

"Come back, you coward!"

Before the monkey got out of range he brought out a spear, took aim, and flung it toward his target to miss miserably.

"Shit."

The monkey escaped into the forest. Aito was unwilling to blindly chase it in there. His myriad of traps proved useful to deal with his enemies, but now that he had taken off the markers, even he had to watch out for them.

Now he could only hope for the monkey to fall for one of his traps, or replace it before it recovered.

***

Perched on a tree branch, Jack laughed his ass off at the man-thing's lack of intelligence. If it had been him, he would have chased after that monkey and swiftly dispatch him. Too bad he was one of Jack's comrades, and Jack wouldn't betray his own.

Having learned what he could from that fight, he jumped away from tree to tree as to avoid the man-thing's devilish machinations.

Jack had seen days ago what they might do to him when one of his comrades fell prey to one of those. But unlike a certain dumb-moving piece of meat, Jack was smart so he could avoid them.

A few minutes later, he finally arrived at his resting place, the cradle of his power and symbol of his absolute wit, The Broken Cage.

From the day he had escaped, he felt an immense pride towering over one of his numerous victories against the man-things supernatural creation. He also couldn't simply let go of such a place. A place where he had gained the mightiest and coolest sound ever, "Jack."

However, right now, something was desecrating The Broken Cage. His wounded comrade had found refuge in it and tainted the bamboo bars with blood.

Sacrilege!

On top of that, he was chewing on a divine food Jack had stored for later. Jack felt the happiest with a full stomach after dealing with an impersonator and no one ever dared to deny him this absolute pleasure. Not even the man-thing.

Because the penalty for it was DEATH.

On all four, Jack soundlessly dropped from his hiding place and, dagger in hand prowled towards the wounded monkey who was enjoying what he should never have touched.

Under the cover of bushes, the fallen tree, and tall grasses, Jack sneaked his way to his comrade… no, to his prey.

The poor bastard had no idea what came for him and happily swallowed the divine food. Even if Jack felt a wave of incredible anger build up inside him at the sight of it, he still maintained his countenance.

Finally withing reach, his leg muscles tightened like a spring and with agility exceeding that of the man-thing, leaped to his target's throat.

"Kyaaak!"

Blood poured out like a fountain from the monkey's throat. But Jack was far from done. He frenetically stabbed him, leaving him with no chance of retaliation.

Satisfied and covered in blood, Jack stopped to admire his glorious victory. However…

"Kyaaak!"

An unbearable pain seized him as his memories distorted. Food, drinks, fights, laughter. Gone. His sense of camaraderie for his kin and hatred for the man-thing. All gone.

Everything prior to his apparition on the island vanished like it never existed.

He didn't feel like killing the man-thing anymore. Having lost his purpose, he stood daze and watched the life leaving what used to be one of his comrades. No, IT never was one of them. To begin with, Jack never had comrades.

Everything he knew until this point was wrong. False. Incorrect. An utter lie. He suddenly felt angry and betrayed.

Then, he remembered one single thing from his past. A voice in the void ordering him to kill the man-thing.

Who was it? Who did this to him? Whoever it was, he will never forgive it.

What he hated the most, after sacrileges, was being ordered around. And if that thing's desire was to kill the man-thing, then…

Then Jack will deny its wish.